Recluses

[Clément Levy]

For me, Colegate thinks of the Effigies Mason meets in a pub (290-291), but 
they're no automata at all...
Regards.
Clément Levy

Paul Mackin à dit à ÒReclusesÓ.
[2002/06/09 18:42:25]

> Saw a reference to Pynchon in the current New York  Review of Books
> which I don't quite GET.
> 
> The review (not free on line unfortunately) is of a book called A
> Pelican in the Wilderness: Hermits, Solitaries and Recluses by
> Isabel
> Colegate.  Anyway it was discussing the  age of the ornamental
> hermets
> so called--how in the eighteenth century a hermitage was often the
> sine
> qua non of any gentleman's estate which necessarily required the
> employ
> of a resident recluse. So to the p-reference:
> 
> "When one well-placed prop called Father Francis died, bringing an
> end
> to the dark talk of death and eternity with which visitors to
> Hawkstone,
> in Shropshire, could be entertained, he was replaced for a while
> (like
> something from Pynchon's Mason & Dixon) by an automaton. When that
> gave
> out, it was replaced by a stuffed hermit, 'adorned with a goat's
> beard.'"
> 
> M&D of course has an automaton or two perhaps,  but  what's the
> point???
> 
> 
> 
> P.
> 
> 
> 
>